Like the rat in its quest for sugary rewards, if the player adopts an "optimal strategy", they will make a profit.

"But patients with frontal lobe damage just don't learn from their experiences", said Professor Robbins. They continue to choose from the "bad decks".

'Truly translational'

To further test their model, the team looked at how the rats' performance was affected by drugs that altered levels of two neurotransmitters, dopamine and serotonin.

These are signalling chemicals in the brain that are both thought to play an important role in addiction.

Researchers hope to develop treatments for "pathological gambling"

The rats were given a drug that reduced the amount of serotonin circulating in their brains. This impaired their ability to make good decisions, and to successfully play the odds.

"Not only have we seen that our rats will gamble, but we've also been able to modulate that behaviour," lead author Catharine Winstanley from the University of British Columbia told BBC News.

"This coincides with data we've seen from pathological gamblers, who have been shown to have lower levels of serotonin in their brains," she added.

"We also found that we could make our rats better gamblers by giving them a dopamine receptor antagonist - a drug that reduces the effects of the neurotransmitter dopamine."

This also ties in neatly with clinical findings in humans. "Treatments for Parkinson's disease [which increase dopamine to aid movement] have been seen to induce pathological gambling," said Dr Winstanley.

"The hope is that this will stimulate interest in studying gambling."

Marc Potenza, a psychiatrist from Yale University who specialises in addiction and problem gambling, described the new test as a "significant step forward" that could eventually lead to new therapies to treat gambling behaviour.

"This is truly translational. It's a rat model that is mimicking human behaviour," said Professor Potenza.

"There are currently no approved treatments for pathological gambling or any of the other formal impulse control disorders. Having good animal models is vital in their development."

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